At Wynwood, in the deep of the country, Mr. Bagford's material soul
went off, half-sobbing, half-uplifted, on a romantic pilgrimage. His
own machine-like bachelor flat in Half Moon Street, his
pseudo-ancient country cottage near the fashionable golf-links,
afforded him nothing like this. Also, as nearly as he could manage
it, he was quite definitely in love.
Vingie, with unconscious feminine play-acting, dramatized a very
sweet and darling conception of an engaged girl. She led him
prettily among all the paths and scenes where she had frivoled as a
child. She wandered bareheaded through the sunshine, laying, now and
then, appealing fingers on his sleeve, showing him the stables, the
rose-garden, the orchards of the home farm, the peaceful sheep and
cattle. She staged a perfect idyl for this hard-bitten, commercial
man; she played golf simply and naturally, she challenged him on the
tennis court. For dinner she added a touch of ceremony, and came
down the great staircase to him with some remote touch of her storied
ancestors, very fair and stately.
She made herself seem utterly pure and virginal, while he contrasted
himself, stained with the mire of conflict. Behind them hovered a
bemused background of Sir Charles, Lord Fordingbridge and Rupert.
Nevertheless, when Vingie had passed bedward to her girlish dreams a
boundless change came over the scene. Sir Charles glanced absently
at his watch.
"Shall we," he suggested, "take a final whisky-and-soda in the
library?"
"An excellent idea, Charles," declared Lord Fordingbridge blandly.
"I always say there's nothing like a night-cup, especially at our
age. Rupert, of course, couldn't stay awake if he tried, could you,
my dear fellow?"
They grouped restfully in four stalwart armchairs. Mr. Bagford,
teeth clamped on his cigar, wondered why the love of a young girl
could make him so regret many enjoyable episodes in his checkered
past. The calm voice of Sir Charles broke gently on the silence.
"Virginia tells me," he began, "that you have decided to support our
foreign policy in Jugo-Czechia. I imagine she is making a mistake,
but one would like to be reassured."
"Virginia is quite right. I gave her my word to support it. That
was a condition of the engagement."
"But my dear Mr. Bagford," rumbled Lord Fordingbridge, "pardon my
remindin' you that in return for certain facilities I gave your
correspondents in various parts of the world you undertook always to
oppose my policy in every particular. Y'see, you've put me in a very
distressin' position. We went a good deal further in this
Jugo-Czechian matter than we really wanted to go. Afterward, in
response to the clamor of the press we proposed to modify our
demands. Unfortunately, my dear fellow, you haven't even squeaked,
let alone clamored. The press is unanimously in our favor. I
haven't been so distressed since the outbreak of the Franco-German
War in 1871."
"Excuse me, sir," besought Rupert. "War was declared between France
and Germany on October the sixth, 1870."
"I accept the amendment: since October the sixth, 1870," acquiesced
Lord Fordingbridge.
Mr. Bagford shook his head wearily.
"To tell you the truth I had an idea she might be a spy of yours or
something of the kind," he explained. "Then, finding she was not, I
fell in love with her. She made my support of the government's
foreign policy a condition of the engagement. There are some things
in my life which I regret, but this is not one of them, and never
will be. I promised Virginia to support Lord Fordingbridge's foreign
policy, and I shall continue to do so, even if it drives him out of
office. As a matter of fact she thought she was doing him a good
turn. I didn't think. I was in love."
"My dear Mr. Bagford," said Lord Fordingbridge very solemnly, "the
man who would break his word to a woman is not worthy of the name of
an English gentleman."
"It is one of a gentleman's greatest handicaps," observed Sir
Charles, "particularly as a lady may break hers all day and all
night, and still preserve her social standing."
A strangled sound which he was totally unable to suppress burst from
the throat of Rupert. He rose, murmured good night, and staggered
rather than walked from the room.
"Poor lad, he's hard hit!" declared Lord Fordingbridge solemnly.
"How true it is that one man's meat is another man's poison. Well, I
suppose I must go hurtling to my political doom, supported by the
undivided applause of the newspapers. I beg you to understand,
however, Mr. Bagford, that my reprieve would be dearly bought at the
price of your peace of mind. In the circumstances, if I were given
the choice of victory or Westminster Abbey, I should begin instantly
to discuss the form of my tombstone with the Dean and Chapter."
The firm, clean-shaven lips of Mr. Bagford curled in contempt.
"So you'll take it lying down," he taunted, "owing to the traditions
of the ancient name and all that sort of thing. Thank God I was born
in the gutter! I'd rather die than give in. I've fought and snarled
and bitten, and gone down and got up again, and gouged people's eyes,
and lied, and stolen, and schemed, and in the long run I've won.
Either the other man or I has got to turn up his toes if he comes up
against me. This is a rough world, gentleman, and needs rough
handling. How could I protect Virginia if I were prepared to chuck
up the sponge at any minute for the sake of my fine feelings? When
we have a son, if he shows any of this aristocratic taint, first I'll
lam the hide off him and then I'll give him a job as a packer in the
warehouse to cure him of soft hands."
"Have some more whisky, Mr. Bagford?" suggested Sir Charles dreamily.
"I can recommend it. My father laid it down many years ago, and
there isn't a headache in a hogshead of it. By the way, George, what
do you fancy for the Sheffield Stakes? Personally I have an entirely
open mind."
"Charles," began Vingie thoughtfully, one evening, when, having
bathed away the outer grime of journalism, she delighted his eyes at
dinner in his small Park Street town house, "I think to permit
illusion is one of the greatest crimes, don't you?"
"I consider it a debatable point whether one should or should not
destroy the fool's paradise of another person," responded Sir
Charles. "By some it is maintained that only fools are happy. On
the other hand the sight of some one persisting in his foolishness
becomes pathetic after a time. To the intelligent there is much
pathos in life, my dear Virginia."
She smiled across at him with devastating charm.
"I was thinking of Jim--Mr. Bagford, you know. Of course, Jim's all
wrong. He's bearable at present because he wants to keep me in a
deceived state, but his whole life has been spent having his own way.
If we were married he'd treat me like an idiot child. I should never
be supposed to possess a mind of my own. I think it's only fair,
don't you, to show him from the first the kind of life I expect to
lead? After all, if a man isn't your slave, what on earth is the use
of him?"
"That," declared Sir Charles, "is very true. Man is never happy in
complete freedom. He ceases to be the slave of one woman merely
because he has become the slave of another. He hugs his chains, or
rather his jailer. Variety in slavery is the best he can ever hope
for."
"You see, Charles, I've put up the circulation of his paper, or
rather shown him how to do it. I think it's time he did something
for me. Jim needs bullying; so far nobody's ever done it. Don't you
agree that he ought to hear the crack of the whip?"
"Be temperate in your chastisement," implored Sir Charles, much
against his will. "Remember that the young are merciless by nature.
After all, he is nearly as old as I am."
Vingie, nibbling a salted almond, looked at him with dove's eyes.
"My dear, you're so wonderful. You've got such breadth of
mind--sympathy, and you understand. Very few people understand,
Charles. Still, sometimes one must be cruel to be kind." Her teeth
crunched ominously on the savory, innocent morsel.
Thus it happened that next day, at the council table in his vast
room, Mr. Bagford found her cold and _distraite_.
"I agree with you that to-morrow's paper's pretty good," she said
slowly. "The point is, Jim, you're neglecting me frightfully. I
didn't get engaged to you simply to double your circulation for the
large salary of fifteen pounds a week. You take everything and give
nothing. Except for a few beastly lunches when you talk about
yourself all the time I might be a typist or even a girl messenger.
You haven't any imagination. It may amaze you to be told that an
engaged girl expects a little romance, a love-affair, some of the
perfume and bath-salts side of life."
"But, my dear----" he interrupted feebly.
"You take me about in a filthy three-year-old Rolls Royce that smells
of company-promoters and shady politicians, and buy me lunch in some
grill room, and talk my head off in this office, and sponge on me for
ideas, and once you gave me the sort of gold wrist-watch my own maid
wouldn't be found drowned with. We might--good heavens, we might be
married!" stormed Vingie.
Mr. Bagford leaned back in his chair, and perspiration beaded his
brow.
"I beg your pardon, Virginia," he said in a voice of awe. "Perhaps
I'm not accustomed to a girl of your type. I thought you were as
absorbed as I am in the paper. I should have remembered your age,
and how pretty you are, and the sort of interests a young girl has."
"You'd better get a 1924 Rolls salon," commanded Vingie. "You
needn't give me things; I've got all the jewelry and odds and ends I
care about, but I insist on your entering into my social life. What
on earth's the use of being engaged to some one nobody ever sees? Do
you suppose this damned rag of yours means anything to any one who
matters? My dear, they only buy it for the servants to read!"
She got up and walked toward the door. "I'll send you a list of
engagements for the next fortnight," she ended icily. "I expect you
to go with me to every one of them. I refuse to be engaged to a
ghost. You needn't come down with me. The commissionaire knows how
to look after a girl much better than you do. He used to be in a
good regiment."
On her way out she glanced into Mr. Berriman's room.
"Pass the word for every one to be very careful," she said
pleasantly. "You'll find the chief in an extremely bad temper. I've
just been speaking a very little piece of my mind, and he isn't used
to it yet."
There began in those days an era of suffering for Mr. Bagford.
Vingie took him from great things and made him to be like a tawny
tiger confined in a larger edition of a squirrel's cage, turning the
petty social wheel when his mighty mind clamored for great schemes
and colossal enterprises. He became like a bloodhound turned into a
lady's lap dog, like a racing Sunbeam condemned to take a lady
shopping.
He was to be seen at first nights and dance-clubs, barbered, tailored
and groomed to a satin polish, fretting his nerves to pieces,
attendant on a soulless, artificial Vingie, a mere manicured and
_maquillée_ silhouette wound up to dance and chatter. One met him at
drawing-room concerts given by great ladies to launch twittering
Polish musicians. There came not a horse show, a flower show, a polo
tournament, or a fashionable race-meeting, but he attended. He even
suffered the degradation of political receptions, he who had toyed
with politicians and pulled political wires these twenty years.
The Duke of Birmingham, encountering him leaning against a pillar,
dull-eyed and morose, at the Marchioness of Cricklewood's banquet on
the eve of the Bill for the Further Enfranchisement of Adult (Female)
Persons, put up his eye-glass and said in a cultured monotone:
"Bored, what?"
To which Mr. Bagford, goaded beyond measure, made answer:
"So would you be if you had the brains of a rabbit."
"Oh, quite, quite!" responded His Grace sympathetically.
Rupert, moving amid the throng with an expression of political wisdom
on his face and a broken heart throbbing in his chest, paused for a
moment beside Vingie.
"You look very beautiful to-night," he said, with a lover's sad
intensity of feeling.
She turned on him a flippant smile.
"I shine for my _fiancé_," she explained. "He's being schooled in
the society arena to make him a good husband. Why do you look so
unhappy, my very dear?"
"I'm dying of a hopeless love, and the government's dying of a
hopeless foreign policy. Neither is a cheerful business for me," he
answered sorrowfully.
She drifted on almost into the arms of Lord Fordingbridge, who
surveyed her with a wistful smile.
"I beg you to elope with me when I am flung out of office," he said,
betraying all the cheerfulness of a condemned man who catches the
warder cheating him at a game of draughts. "I shall depart to the
north of Scotland and write my reminiscences in the snow. The
trouble is I spell so disgracefully, but I dare say I can hire some
clever fellow to put in the commas and full stops afterward. I'd
like a lovely companion in exile. We must ask Charles about it. I
insist on asking Charles!"
On a Sunday in the sunshine Mr. Bagford's 1924 Rolls Royce salon
conveyed Vingie, delicious in sports clothes, and himself to a quiet
country inn where they lunched upon the kindly fruits of the earth,
taking coffee subsequently in a rose-embowered summer-house all among
the earwigs. As the smoke of her cigarette curled lazily roof ward,
Mr. Bagford unburdened his soul.
"Virginia, dear," he began, "I've been consulting my conscience very
seriously, and I have very grave doubts whether I'm fit to marry you."
Vingie, giggling internally, recognized a point in the game for which
she had been playing. Outwardly grave she replied:
"My dear Jim, whatever do you mean?"
"There have been other women in my life," confessed Mr. Bagford,
fixing a stern brave gaze upon the far horizon. "If you were a
widow, or at least ten years older, I could overlook my past. As it
is----"
He left the sentence unfinished. Sometimes it is better so.
Vingie sighed in regretful resignation.
"I suppose no man is exactly a Sir Galahad at fifty," she replied.
"Still, Jim, all that's over now. After all, a girl who moves in
society recognizes that men are--well, what they are. Even darling
Charles has kissed several women in the course of his life. I don't
suppose you've been noticeably dreadful, have you?"
Mr. Bagford shook his head.
"I remember a girl at the Hilarium Theater when I was twenty-five.
That flirtation lasted six years. We fell desperately in love. I
thought my pulse would never beat faster for any woman again, until I
met a lady-in-waiting to the then Queen of Greece when I was special
correspondent at Athens. These Greek women are terribly
temperamental. One of the equerries did his best to shoot me over
that."
"How interesting!" murmured Vingie, looking at him with a new respect
in her eyes. "Were there any more?"
"Olga Petrovskaya, at Petrograd, in 1913, when I attended the Grand
Maneuvers of the Russian Army was another. I'm afraid we should
actually have eloped only the grand duke returned very suddenly. The
sleigh was actually at the door, and she had packed her jewels."
"What happened?" demanded Vingie eagerly.
"She unpacked them and sent the sleigh back to the stables, and I
wrote a very nasty criticism of the grand duke's handling of his
brigade," said Mr. Bagford with morose relish.
"But," suggested Vingie, "those are peccadilloes of the past. Surely
there's been nothing lately?" Mr. Bagford shook his head.
"Actually when you came to the office I was rather deeply involved in
what I believed, until I met you, was the love of my life," he
answered slowly and painfully. "She is about thirty. They take
things very seriously at that age. She represents the gentle,
affectionate type--the primeval mother-woman, a brown-eyed,
soft-voiced creature--very restful in her ways. To be quite candid,
I'm afraid she may break her heart."
Vingie linked her fingers in his with a little sigh.
"Jim, you've been very wicked, haven't you! I shall have a frightful
job to keep you, I suppose. I'm awfully sorry for the brown-eyed
woman--thirty you said she was, didn't you?--but she'd never be happy
with you even if you married her. Your soul would be always calling
to mine, and she'd know, and go through hell--simply hell! I'm glad
you've told me all this because it shows you're very honest." She
held up an oval cheek and looked away from him. "Kiss me--just
once," she ended, and obediently Mr. Bagford's lips brushed lightly
her fragrant skin.
In the car as they fled homeward he sat lost in thought, hunched in
his corner against the taupe upholstery. Finally he said with an air
of deep regret:
"I may be compelled to visit the United States very shortly. There
are rather delicate negotiations with a New York paper over a series
of articles. If I have to go the voyage may do me good. Lately,
since we've been going out together so much I don't get a great deal
of sleep."
"Poor Jim," murmured a soothing voice. "You won't forget our list of
engagements for next week, will you? and you'll hurry back to me from
America if you really do go? You might travel to and from Cherbourg
by air. I believe it saves quite several hours. Of course, I'll
wireless to you every day. You'd like that, wouldn't you, Jim?"
"The comedy is nearly played out," she told herself in the serene
calm of her Park Street bedroom, standing thoughtfully before the
mirror in a suit of very inspired silk undies. "Soon I must take
pity on poor Jim and release him. After all I only got engaged to
save George Fordingbridge from an attack by the _Daily Tale_. I'd
better find out how soon it will be safe to let Jim go. As for
marrying him--poor thing, if he only knew!"
She stood meekly while Mary slipped an evening frock over her head,
and went down to find a brief note from Rupert, beseeching her to
lunch with him next day at the Ramillies Club. "It may be the last
opportunity for some time, and you would give me very great
pleasure," she read in his excessively neat handwriting.
"And what," she inquired when he smiled upon her in melancholy
pleasure across a secluded table, "is the hidden mystery you hint at,
Rupert, darling? You look like one who is about to take farewell of
all familiar things."
"I am," answered Rupert Frack dolefully. "I shall ask you presently
to come and help me choose hot-weather kit. I sail shortly for South
America."
"But, my dear, in heaven's name why?"
Rupert leaned back in his chair and summed up the situation.
"The government will have to resign on the Jugo-Czechian question.
You see, Fordingbridge had an understanding with--with--with the man
you're engaged to, which was that the _Daily Tale_ should always
oppose our foreign policy. Sometimes we like to commit ourselves too
deeply, and then popular clamor in the press enables us to retreat in
deference to public opinion. But you made Bagford promise not to
oppose us as a condition of your engagement. Thus we were completely
undone. He couldn't withdraw, and Fordingbridge quite rightly
refused to wreck your--er--happiness to save his political
reputation. We shall be defeated on the Debate to-morrow night. He
has very kindly obtained a post for me in one of our South American
Embassies as a last act of friendship. He himself will retire to
Scotland to write his reminiscences."
"And I shall only have Charles left," murmured Vingie.
Rupert shook his head.
"Uncle Charles, completely dissatisfied with the turn of political
events, is making a trip round the world. He feels that in a few
years age will prevent further travel, and as you will be happily
married he proposed to seize the present opportunity."
Vingie ate her last spoonful of ice, and spoke slowly through the
locked barrier of her pearly teeth.
"I think," she said, "men are the most pure and holy fools in all
creation. If you'd only told me, if you hadn't gone about mumbling
your silly mumbo-jumbo, and being mysterious in smoking-rooms, and
saying to one another: 'Hush! Here comes the poor girl! We must
keep it from her at any cost!' I could have saved you long ago. As
it is I have just time. Do you suppose I want to marry that
impossible man, Rupert? Do you imagine I had any intention of
marrying him? I merely toyed with him for the sake, as I thought, of
George. This comes of George trying to play a double game. I'm not
surprised, but that Charles should be deceived grieves me."
"I fail to see what you can do," responded Rupert heavily.
"I shall prevent you wasting money on hot-weather kit. Take me in
your car to the _Daily Tale_ instantly."
"But how----" he began.
Vingie stamped her slender foot.
"Do I sit here and lecture to you on journalism, or do I not? 'From
information which only now reaches us'--the leader writer will say.
For heaven's sake hurry. There's such a thing as time, my dear man."
In the vast room of Mr. Bagford her delicious frock struck a pleasant
note of charm. She walked slowly across the terrific sea of carpet
in which he sat enisled and placed a hand affectionately on his arm.
"I am sailing for New York next week in the _Aquitania_," he began,
but she halted him with a gesture.
"You needn't, Jim," she said gently. "I've seen you fretting at your
chains for weeks. I'll let you off on one condition. You must come
out with a violent attack on Lord Fordingbridge to-morrow morning,
otherwise he'll be defeated in the debate on Jugo-Czechia to-morrow
evening. I've just been told the curious situation between you and
him. I thought I was helping him, and you let me make a fool of
myself. That, my dear Jim, is unforgivable. Unless the attack
to-morrow morning is perfectly scurrilous you will be compelled to
marry me and keep me for life."
A wan yet happy smile spread slowly over the face of Mr. Bagford.
"Naturally, this breaking of our engagement is a great blow to me,"
he murmured. "Still you know best, Virginia; I will give Lord
Fordingbridge the splash column and write the leader myself. Nobody
else would dare to be sufficiently unpleasant."
At midnight after the debate on Jugo-Czechia, Lord Fordingbridge
supped at Sir Charles' house. Vingie ministered to him with her own
slender hands, which first he kissed in the old-time manner.
"My laurel-wreath is a little awry," he confessed, "but I have
escaped the wilderness. We carried the day by a very narrow majority
thanks entirely to you, my dear Virginia. This morning's _Daily
Tale_ was marvelous--marvelous. I am almost thinking of a libel
action against them."
"My dear, why did you let me put you in such danger? Why didn't you
trust me?" she murmured, pouring champagne into his glass.
Lord Fordingbridge sipped reverently.
"A wonderful wine!" he declared, glancing respectfully at Sir
Charles. "It gives me strength to confess. Y'see, my dear, I would
have explained the whole thing long ago, but Rupert wouldn't let me.
He's a trifle more fond of you than you imagine, and this engagement
of yours--from the most worthy motives I admit--positively lacerated
him. So what does he do but get out the Machiavellian scheme of
letting you continue in ignorance. 'The change, when it comes, will
be so dramatic we shall win hands down,' says Rupert.
"'But how can you guarantee to put everything right at the last
moment?' says I.
"'Leave it to me!' says Rupert."
Lord Fordingbridge moistened his parched lips, and continued:
"That little story he told you at luncheon yesterday wasn't quite
accurate. I'm not writing my reminiscences, Charles isn't going
round the world, and Rupert doesn't sail for South America. But your
action on hearing it, my dear Virginia--masterly, Napoleonic,
indescribable. The government owes you a debt of gratitude it can
never repay."
The smile hovering round Vingie's mouth might have graced the lips of
Torquemada at the grilling of a heretic.
"I will give you an opportunity to try," she observed sweetly. "You
shall lend me Rupert to-morrow afternoon. I would like him to return
in person the gold wristlet watch which Mr. Bagford gave me while we
were engaged. I understand these young men of the Foreign Office
pride themselves on their tact."
Sir Charles poured her a glass of champagne and came forward.
"You and I, Virginia, are still bachelors," he said with triumph,
"Let us drink to our freedom. Long may it last!"
With a superb gesture Vingie drained the golden wine, cast the glass
on the floor, and crushed it beneath her heel.
"Amen, Charles," she replied fervently. "You needn't look so
alarmed. It isn't one of our best glasses."